The Return of Sherlock Holmes- The Abbey Grange

 "The game is afoot!”

This is, perhaps, one of the finer episodes, where the production and acting are very much on form in an adaptation of what is, while perhaps not one of the more well known of Conan Doyle’s short stories, certainly one of the better ones.

I’m blogging the series, not the short stories; I’ve read everything Conan Doyle ever wrote featuring Holmes (and, I must confess, absolutely none of his other stuff, which would have annoyed him) at least once, but in all cases some time ago. And that “some time ago” you just read was written by a man of forty-three years.

However, I simply have to comment on the story here. Conan Doyle was never really one for the “rules” of murder mysteries; said rules were only codified by Father Knox in 1928 after all, the year after Conan Doyle finished writing Holmes. Yet here we have what looks like a classic mystery of a murdered squire in a country house, with a billiard room to boot... and the killer turns out to be some randomer we hadn’t previously met. And Holmes lets him off. Incredibly, it’s all quite satisfying because of this precisely because the question isn’t so much whodunit as how and why. Things were more fluid before Father Knox came along with his rules.

This is a superb production, of course, and Brett is magnificent; I particularly love his discomfort as Lady B hugs him, and as ever he delivers Conan Doyle’s lines with depth and character. Hardwicke, in his first filmed episode, impresses too. The whole series seems as good as ever at this point.

Catweazle: Season 1, Episode 6- The Magic Face

 "Such an English face!"

This is, perhaps, one of the more bog standard episodes with little to make it stand out. Even the plot, an American photographer (and isn't it amusing these days to see film having to be developed, much as the quality was generally better?) taking a picture of Catweazle and his thinking that he is therefore her slave, is humdrum. The fact that Mrs Derringer is such a stereotypical American also helps to give the impression that rather less care was taken with this script than some of the others.

Still, whatever else is going on and in spite of the unremarkableness of the episode, Geoffrey Bayldon continues to be eminently watchable and charismatic, as even Mrs Derringer can see. 

Two shillings an hour to wash a car, that's slavery, though...